The past couple of weeks my digestive tract, from esophagus to the other end, has churned and burned and caused me more stress than the daily stress I work very hard to avoid.

My doctor isn't particularly concerned and she suggested that I shouldn't be either, so I dutifully packed up my supplements and headed home to wait it out.

Today, a friend asked me what my gut was telling me about something, and I said I couldn't hear my gut what with all the churning and burning going on in there.

"Interesting. What do you think your unhappy gut is trying to tell you?" Tina asked.

Time to listen.

Some days it's all you can do:

Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you'll be walking 'cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you'll be walking out the door
--Lyrics by Burl Ives and Mickey Rooney

I moved to Spain two and a half years ago to redefine my role as a parent and a woman. A year into the experience, I started writing the mother fail  blog.

I'm no longer in Spain, nor am I blogging at mother fail, but if you're interested in posts from Spain, you'll find them at mother fail: changing definitions of motherhood one day at a time.